"You'll make a good Christian, no doubt," he continued; "the independent man, who thinks for himself, reasons his way to his principles, and sticks fast to them, is sure to be true to whatever system he embraces. You have been so consistent a philosopher, that I am sure you will make a steady Christian. You're not the man to be led by the nose by a sophistical mumbler. _You_ could never be made the prey of a grasping proselytism; _you_ are not the sport of every whiff of doctrine, nor the facile slave of whatever superstition is last buzzed in your ear. No, no: you've got a masculine intellect, and think for yourself, hey?" I was incapable of answering him. I quickened my pace to escape from his detested persecution; but he was close beside me still. We walked on together thus for a time, during which I heard him muttering fast to himself, like a man under fierce and malignant excitement. We reached, at length, the gateway of my dwelling; and I turned the latch-key in the wicket, and entered the enclosure. As we stood together within, he turned full upon me, and confronting me with an aspect whose character I felt rather than saw, he said-- "And so you mean to be a Christian, after all! Now just reflect how very absurdly you are choosing. Leave the Bible to that class of fanatics who may hope to be saved under its system, and, in the name of common sense, study the Koran, or some less ascetic tome. Don't be gulled by a plausible slave, who wants nothing more than to multiply _professors_ of his theory. Why don't you _read_ the Bible, you miserable, puling poltroon, before you hug it as a treasure? Why don't you read it, and learn out of the mouth of the founder of Christianity, that there is one sin for which there is _no_ forgiveness--blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, hey?--and that sin I myself have heard you commit by the hour--in my presence--in my room. I have heard you commit it in our free discussions a dozen times. The Bible seals against you the lips of mercy. If _it_ be true, you are this moment as irrevocably damned as if you had died with those blasphemies on your lips." Having thus spoken, he glided into the house. I followed slowly. His words rang in my ears--I was stunned. What he had said I feared might be true. Giant despair felled me to the earth. He had recalled, and lighted up with a glare from the pit, remembrances with which I knew not how to cope. It was true I had spoken with daring impiety of subjects whose sacredness I now began to appreciate. With trembling hands I opened the Bible. I read and re-read the mysterious doom recorded by the Redeemer himself against blasphemers of the Holy Ghost--monsters set apart from the human race, and damned and dead, even while they live and walk upon the earth. I groaned--I wept. Henceforward the Bible, I thought, must be to me a dreadful record of despair. I dared not read it.